Copeland, a 1967 graduate of accounting studies from the university, told the gathering from the school's J. Mack Robinson College of Business, "Ethics and integrity boil down to an individual. We can't abdicate to policies,
regulations or laws our personal responsibility for integrity and ethical behavior."
   
He highlighted recent business history to the graduates to show how an absence of integrity and ethical behavior by certain individuals created collateral damage that claimed thousands of jobs, robbed many of retirement
savings, eroded billions of dollars in shareholder value and tarnished the reputations of many in the capital markets.
   
"When we experience consequences like these, suddenly ethical behavior doesn't seem academic, philosophical or irrelevant to our daily lives," he said. "That's when the subject of integrity and ethical behavior works its way
to the top of our personal agenda. Integrity and ethics can't be a sometime thing. They have to be interwoven into the very fabric of our culture and our everyday lives."

 

Copeland called for all educational institutions -- high schools, colleges and universities -- to step up to the important role they can play in ethics education.

 

"Our schools can help prepare their students to face up to the ethical decisions that await them, not only in the business world, but in all of our society," he said.

 

Copeland will retire as CEO from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Deloitte & Touche effective May 31. 

 

Earlier, Copeland's successor, William Parrett, cited the accounting firm's commitment to integrity and quality, or "IQ," during a speech in New York titled "Corporate Governance and Corporate Well-Being."